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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Friends

We spent our weekend enjoying an extended visit from some old friends. Surely one of the Lord's happiest blessings is having old friends, dear friends who knew you when, and reconnecting with such friends was our joy this past weekend.

We met some ten or eleven years ago, back when our boys were little and playing basketball together. We chatted in the stands, they had us over for supper, and then for the next several years our boys were nearly inseparable and our families scarcely less so. There was a great void when they moved and it was quite some time before I grew accustomed to watching a soccer match without my friend sitting beside me, our boys playing as teammates and our husbands coaching together across the field.

It's been two or three years since we'd seen each other last, my friend and I, and when we were all standing in my kitchen not long after their arrival I thought to myself that it was as if they'd never left. Indeed the only indication that any time had passed could be found in the size and height of our kids. We, of course, look exactly as we did ten years ago (of course we do!).

I don't make friends easily. In fact, it always surprises and embarrasses me a little when I realize someone genuinely wants to be my friend. Since I am such a freak I am all the more grateful for true friends, friends who know me and love me and persist in offering me their friendship despite my weird reserved nature. In other words it can't be easy being a friend to someone like me and I am so thankful for those who do so despite the risks involved!

I am being a little silly, yes. Despite this feeble attempt at self deprecation what I really want to say is that I am so very grateful for friends, for fellow sojourners and companions to this life, for godly women who model to me a passion for Christ and a love for others. I am blessed to count several such women as my dear friends and I am thankful for the bond we share because of Christ. He knits our hearts together as sisters and as friends and in His gracious providence allows us the privilege of being sharpened and edified one to another. I am thankful for my friends, then and now, those who knew me when and those who know me now.

I love friends that you are on the same page with no matter how long it is between face to face meetings. I'm not one who has a bevy of friends. I'm loyal and faithful but not real charismatic in that way...

I've had a very difficult time adjusting to our lives here; friends have been slow in coming. Perhaps it's me... maybe I'm slow in coming. Anyway, I finally have a friend; it's been a slow process to get to the place where I "feel" the friendship. I'm so grateful to God for bringing her my way. It's likely to grow stronger in the days to come; I just hope we can live here long enough to cultivate more friendships.

"I don't make friends easily. In fact, it always surprises and embarrasses me a little when I realize someone genuinely wants to be my friend."

I know this feeling well. Moving often has helped me a little to learn to make friends easier, but only a little. Sometimes it makes it harder. I am very thankful for our last church before we moved here and our current church which have proved to be a balm after a five year 'wilderness' stint in another place where we lived in terms of friendship and loneliness (which actually led to my blogging hobby, come to think of it). Those kinds of old friendships you mentioned are priceless. And I'm so thankful for the Body of Christ and that bond made possible because of Jesus.